Mild cosmetic compositions must satisfy a number of criteria including cleansing power, foaming properties and mildness/low irritancy/good feel with respect to the skin, hair and the ocular mucosae. Skin is made up of several layers of cells which coat and protect the keratin and collagen fibrous proteins that form the skeleton of its structure. The outermost of these layers, referred to as the stratum corneum, is known to be composed of 250 .ANG. protein bundles surrounded by 80 .ANG. thick layers. Hair similarly has a protective outer coating enclosing the hair fibre which is called the cuticle. Anionic surfactants can penetrate the stratum corneum membrane and the cuticle and, by delipidization destroy membrane integrity. This interference with skin and hair protective membranes can lead to a rough skin feel and eye irritation and may eventually permit the surfactant to interact with the keratin and hair proteins creating irritation and loss of barrier and water retention functions.
Ideal cosmetic cleansers should cleanse the skin or hair gently, without defatting and/or drying the hair and skin and without irritating the ocular mucosae or leaving skin taut after frequent use. Most lathering soaps, shower and bath products, shampoos and bars fail in this respect.
Certain synthetic surfactants are known to be mild. However, a major drawback of most mild synthetic surfactant systems when formulated for shampooing or personal cleansing is poor lather performance compared to the highest shampoo and bar soap standards. Thus, surfactants that are among the mildest are marginal in lather. The use of known high sudsing anionic surfactants such as alkyl sulphates with lather boosters, on the other hand, can yield acceptable lather volume and quality but at the expense of clinical skin mildness. These two facts make the surfactant selection, the lather and mildness benefit formulation process a delicate balancing act.
Thus a need exists for personal cleansing products which deliver acceptable in-use skin feel characteristics but which will not dehydrate the skin or result in loss of skin suppleness, which will provide a level of skin conditioning performance in a wash and rinse-off product which previously has only been provided by a separate post-cleansing cosmetic moisturizer, which demonstrate desirable rinsing behaviour and which will produce a foam which is stable and of high quality, which are effective hair and skin cleansers, which have good rinsibility characteristics, and which at the same time have stable product and viscosity characteristics and remain fully stable under long term and stressed temperature storage conditions.
It has now been found that personal cleansing compositions having improved skin feel and moisturisation attributes, both in use and after use, which deliver desirable rinsing benefits and good product stability can be formed by the combination of short chain alkyl sulphates with cationic polymers and mild surfactants and/or nonionic surfactants. Surprisingly, the combination of short chain (high CMC) alkyl sulphate and cationic polymer is particularly advantageous for skin mildness benefits and at the same time provides good lathering characteristics especially in applications which involve concentrated usage or direct application to skin such as shower products, hand and skin cleansers and the like. It has also been found that combinations of short chain alkyl sulphates with particular alkyl ethoxysulphate surfactants confer particular benefits in personal cleansing compositions in terms of mildness and rinsing characteristics.